Sitting waist deep, a pile of seaweeds in front of them, they tend to their garden, except that it is in blue salty water as compared to digging back earth. Rows after rows, the algae grows, attached to the bottom by a blue piece of string which is between two sticks... It would appear that a company buys it dry, by the kilogram and so, there are hundreds of women out there collecting it... completely dressed up because it is a Muslim area. Even children collect the algae while men make noise on the sand to trap fish into nets.

In the middle of the locals doing their daily chores, walk a few white people like us..

. almost undressed... along this huge, white beach, with a very fine sand... and I wonder how the Tanzanians feel to have their beach completely taken over by hotels and palapas types accommodations. They do not seem to care though and often they throw "Hi!" to us and "Welcome!". Children giggle and do not ask for money nor sweets like in Kenya.... The roads are almost empty since there a very few ferries taking cars and trucks....and you must have heard of the last accident which drowned hundreds... most certainly because many locals do not know how to swim. We are lucky then to have taken a small motor boat to come here and thanks to “Gravel”, I did not feel sick... though I don't enjoy being bobbed by the waves. Peggy did everything she could to stay “afloat” in terms of not vomiting and a man at the back could not hold it anymore...while, Roman was taking care of his girlfriend, talking and joking ! They were from Luxembourg and had a great time in Tanzania....

We were not too happy with the new accommodation we rented...on the internet it appeared so much better, in front of the beach apparently, when in reality, one has to go via a small sandy trail at the back of shacks and broken houses, via garbage and what not...and a view? Well, none of the blue water! Hungry dogs keep watch, hoping for food...and they seem quite faithful, following Peggy in particular, because she likes dogs so much

Oh well... this is the last time we will have paid for something in advance and from now on, once we get on the mainland, we are going to camp and are not even sure of where we will stay. On verra! Corinne